“Partnering with Clearwater will
allow us to further shift focus from collecting data to analyzing it, so that
we can support AIG’s objectives and investment strategies,” says Elias Habayeb,
deputy chief financial officer at AIG. “With Clearwater’s expertise and their
platform’s scalability, we are excited to take this decisive action in
promoting technological excellence and operational efficiency.”

“Establishing Clearwater as the
core platform for its investment data management will provide AIG with greater
freedom and flexibility, positioning the organization for future growth as it
evolves investment strategies and asset classes,” says Dave Boren, CEO of
Clearwater Analytics. “Clearwater’s automated solution can also support future
integration efforts for mergers, acquisitions, and other growth strategies. AIG
is a natural fit for Clearwater’s best-in-class platform and we look forward to
a long and productive collaboration between our firms.”

The new indexes, created and
owned by Adelante Capital Management, LLC (ACM), with Wilshire retained as
custom index consultant and calculation agent, are designed to measure the
performance of publicly-traded real estate securities, primarily real estate investment trusts (REITs), which own and operate commercial real estate.
Adelante NEXTGen Property Securities Index is designed to serve as a proxy for
non-traditional commercial real estate property types that have evolved and
emerged over the past decade. The Adelante CORE Property Securities Index is
designed to serve as a proxy for widely accepted commercial real estate
property types.

The Indexes measure the
performance of two universes of property securities that have been constructed
by property type.

Global asset management firm
American Century Investments has entered into an agreement
with Precidian Investments LLC to license the firm’s ActiveShares
methodology in support of the potential launch of
actively-managed, semi-transparent exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

Subject to regulatory approvals,
Precidian’s patented ActiveShares structure would allow
American Century to deliver its actively-managed investment
strategies in an ETF vehicle without the daily holdings disclosure requirement
of fully transparent ETFs. Precidian is seeking exemptive relief from the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allow for the use of ActiveShares
by asset managers.

“As we build out American
Century’s ETF product suite, our long-term plan is to leverage our established
active-management capabilities to bring clients our investment strategies in an
ETF format, which aligns with certain investors’ preferences,” says Edward
Rosenberg, senior vice president and head of ETFs for American Century. “While
waiting for SEC approval of the ActiveShares methodology,
we are proceeding with plans to launch other transparent ETFs that are informed
by decades of experience and apply our unique insights to solve common
investment problems and help investors achieve their goals.”

Since appointing Rosenberg to the
firm’s top ETF post back in June, American Century has been laying the
foundation for its entry into the ETF marketplace. In October, the firm filed
registration statements for two transparent ETFs: an index-based value ETF and
an actively-managed diversified corporate bond ETF. The firm anticipates a
mid-January effective date for both funds, subject to SEC approval.

American Century joins JP Morgan
Asset Management, BlackRock, Capital Research, Legg Mason, ClearBridge, Royce
and Nationwide in licensing Precidian’s intellectual property. Precidian’s
ActiveShares structure seeks to combine beneficial aspects and
protections of the traditional mutual fund with the efficiencies and
flexibilities of an ETF. The patented ETF structure seeks to provide asset
managers with the ability to generate alpha without daily disclosure of their
proprietary strategies while simultaneously creating improvements in tax efficiency,
manager flexibility and lower operating costs.

NEXT:New York Life Investments Announces New
Equity Fund

New York Life Investments has launched the
MainStay Candriam Emerging Markets Equity Fund. The fund will seek long-term
growth through investments in equity securities of attractively-valued
companies with strong sustainable growth and profitability, and that are
located or economically tied to emerging markets.

The fund will be managed by
Candriam Investors Group, a Pan-European asset manager and a subsidiary
of New York Life Investments. Candriam will manage the fund in a
substantially similar manner to Candriam’s Emerging Markets Equity strategy in
Europe. The investment team includes Jan Boudewijns, Philip Screve and
Mohamed Lamine Saidi, who collectively bring decades of fundamental investment
experience across the emerging markets.

Jan Boudewijns, head of Emerging Equity Management at
Candriam, says,“With volatility at historically low levels and corporate
valuations remaining reasonable across developing regions, we see considerable
long-term value opportunities within emerging-market equities. This new fund
brings our time-tested investment approach and global capabilities to financial
advisers and investors in the United States.”

Kirk Lehneis, chief operating officer at New York Life
Investment Management, says, “This new fund reflects a core strength of our
multi-boutique model, which allows us to offer investors access to high quality
investment specialists across core asset classes. Candriam Investors
Group brings a wealth of experience in accessing emerging market opportunities,
and our investors seeking a fundamental, bottom-up approach will be
well-positioned to benefit from their expertise and global perspective.”

NEXT: ProShares Presents Advanced ETFs and Public Index Funds

ProShares,
a provider of ETFs, has launched ProShares Decline of the Retail Store Exchange-Traded
Fund (ETF), the first specifically designed to benefit from the decline of
bricks and mortar retailers. ProShares Long Online/Short Stores ETF has been
launched as well.

ProShares
Decline of the Retail Store ETF is the first designed to allow investors to
benefit from the potential on-going erosion of value of retailers that rely
principally on in-store sales. It provides short exposure to the new
Solactive-ProShares Bricks and Mortar Retail Store Index. The ETF is designed
to deliver the inverse of the daily performance of the index.

The
Solactive-ProShares Bricks and Mortar Retail Store Index is the first public
index to be composed exclusively of traditional retailers and is intended to
become the standard for measuring their performance. It is equally
weighted and currently has 56 constituent companies that include department
stores, supermarkets and sellers of apparel, consumer electronics and home
improvement items. Current constituents include retailers such as Barnes &
Noble, The Gap, Macy’s, Kroger and Best Buy.

“Investors
are witnessing signs of trouble in the malls and falling stock prices in the
markets,” says Michael L. Sapir, co‑founder and CEO of ProShare Advisors, LLC,
the adviser to ProShares. “For the first time, investors can turn these trends
into a potential investment opportunity through an ETF.”

CLIX,
also recently launched, is the first ETF to provide investors opportunities arising
from both the potential growth of online companies and the decline of bricks
and mortar retailers. It tracks the new ProShares Long Online/Short Stores
Index which combines a 100% long portfolio of on-line and non-traditional
retailers with a 50% short position in bricks and mortar retailers.

“With
CLIX, investors not only receive the investment potential of online retailers
like Amazon and Alibaba but also have the possibility of additional return from
short exposure to traditional retailers,” says Sapir. “CLIX’s 50% net exposure
to the equity markets may result in less volatility than typical long-only
equity strategies.”

To be
included in the Solactive-ProShares Bricks and Mortar Retail Store Index, a
retailer must be characterized as
receiving at least 50% of its revenue from retail operations; receive 75% or more of its
retail revenues from in-store sales; and be a U.S. company.

In
addition, a retailer must have a market capitalization of at least $500
million, a six-month daily average value traded of at least $1 million, and
meet other requirements. The index is rebalanced monthly and reconstituted
annually.

The
ProShares Long Online/Short Stores Index combines two specialized retail
indexes. It includes a 100% long position in the ProShares Online Retail Index
and a 50% short position in the Solactive-ProShares Bricks and Mortar Retail
Store Index. The long and short positions are rebalanced monthly.

Retailers
in the ProShares Online Retail Index include U.S. and non-U.S. companies. To be
eligible, a retailer must be classified as an online
retailer, an e-commerce retailer, or an internet or direct marketing retailer,
according to standard industry classification systems; have a market
capitalization of at least $500 million;
have a six-month daily average value
traded of at least $1 million and meet other requirements.

When
the index is rebalanced, it is weighted so that no company may exceed 24% of
the value of the index, the sum of companies individually weighing more than
4.5% may not exceed 50% of the value of the index, and the total weight of all
non-U.S. companies will be capped at 25% of the value of the index. The index
is rebalanced monthly and reconstituted annually.